Diablo III

Oh man, I missed corpse explosion!

Yeah, me too. :) For some reason, the Blizzard guys kept changing their minds about the Death Knight's version in World of Warcraft. :S

Yeah Corpse Explosion is hand down my favorite Necro skill.

I prefer Revive. Minion spamming was my preferred style for Necromancers in 2.

I don't have prior experience with Diablo II Necromancer builds to go on, but I'm quite enjoying the Bone Armor-centric builds that are buffed considerably by the Grace of Inarius set. Still working on farming the relevant support gear for those and the Set Dungeons (I rather suspect that some of them will be a bit light on support gear) - and, in the case of the Bones of Rathma set, farming the remaining pieces of the set (three down, three to go).

Tried my luck with the Challenge Rift; they've started with a rather easy one, a Demon Hunter Shadow Impale build in a Level 40 rift with a target time of 6'35". I managed to get through it in about four minutes; certainly nowhere near good enough for a spot on the leaderboard, but enough to get the cache of eight of each act's bounty materials, a healthy crop of the three basic crafting materials, and 300 Blood Shards. (I burned through the latter in a futile attempt to get some of the Necromancer support gear from Kadala. I should have expected that result.)

I remember reading that if you put enough points into Revive, you could make your Revived minions stronger than their living counterparts.

My only complaint with necromancer so far is that the corpses look kind of off compared to the rest of the world, I understand it's to make things obvious but they don't feel right.

True, but I make em asplode on sight so I barely see em.

If anything, that would be Skeleton Mastery, which also affected revived monsters. Putting more points into revive only increased the number of revived monsters you could have at the same time... which, to my experience, was quite useless as their AI was horrible and they would constantly get stuck in corners and despawn as soon as you got far from them, making very hard to keep several of them alive. I always put only 1 point into it, and get more monsters from items that increase skill levels.

As to whether they're stronger, the base skill already gives you monsters with double the health of the original monsters, although one should the consider the game's Health/Damage Asymmetry.

edited 30th Jun '17 12:59:48 PM by morenohijazo

I've only just today noticed that Patch 2.6.0 added the ability to include Legendary Potions as part of the builds that are saved in the Armory; I switched builds for one of my characters and found myself wondering why my Legendary Potion had been de-equipped. I suppose this means I need to go through the various character builds I have saved and save the Potion as part of them as well.

Looks as though it's taken next to no time for Complacent Gaming Syndrome to set in regarding the Greater Rift leaderboards for Necromancer; almost the entire top 1000 uses the Grace of Inarius set with Reilena's Shadowhook and Trag'Oul's Corroded Fang equipped and Cubed between them, a skill roster including Grim Scythe, Bone Armor, Corpse Lance, Blood Rush, Land of the Dead, and Decrepify as Actives and Stand Alone, Overwhelming Essence, Spreading Malediction, and Blood is Power, and Wisdom of Kalan and Krysbin's Sentence Cubed and equipped respectively. (Diablo II veterans, does this align at all with any of the favoured Necromancer builds from the previous game? Just curious.)

To be fair, I've got most of the pieces of this build (all except Krysbin's Sentence; the game has been awfully stingy with legendary jewellery drops, apart from the useless ones, and I don't have the Death's Breath or patience to try getting them through Kanai's Cube upgrades since there are over a dozen each of amulets and rings that can be obtained this way) and can vouch for its efficacy, but I suspect part of the problem is that there aren't actually that many class-specific Legendaries at the moment - some classes have more class-specific weapons alone than the Necromancer has weapons, armour, and jewellery - and this build taps into most of the most effective ones. Here's hoping there are more class-specific Legendaries in forthcoming patches that allow for more variety.

(Mind you, Complacent Gaming Syndrome is rampant in most of the other classes. Every top tier Crusader uses the Hammerdin build. The top tier Demon Hunters are 97% Shadow Impale and 3% Unhallowed Essence Grenades. Every top tier Witch Doctor uses the Legacy of Nightmares Sacrifice/Spirit Barrage build. And every top tier Wizard uses the Manald Archon build. There's a modest amount of variety in the Barbarian and Monk leaderboards, but even those are dominated by one build each - Whirlwind with the Istvan set in the former case, Raiment Generators in the latter case. The only redeeming factor of this is that at least there are periodic shifts in the builds that dominate the leaderboards; it wasn't that long ago that the Crusader leaderboards were all Legacy of Nightmare Bombardment all the time, while every top tier Wizard used the Firebird Archon build. Oh, and once you start getting lower down the top 1000, there's more variety for most of the character classes, most notably Monk and Witch Doctor.)

edited 30th Jun '17 11:52:00 PM by mlsmithca

The problem is that at the high end gameplay. All the damage comes from very few sources in the case of legendary sets. Such that popularity on the leader board is a mathematical equation of Kill Speed and Movement Speed and stacking sources of both.

edited 1st Jul '17 3:26:39 AM by stevebat

True enough; it just seems a shame that apparently there's just one build for each class that anyone bothers to use to achieve this. I can imagine it's difficult to create balance within classes, never mind across classes (much venom is spewed on Diablo discussion boards about how, for example, there are no absolute top tier Barbarian builds that can compete with things like the Manald Archon build for the Wizard or the Hammerdin build for the Crusader), and it does appear to be an ongoing process with each new patch.

And to be honest, I'm as guilty of Complacent Gaming Syndrome as the leaderboard leaders; I sometimes experiment with new builds (I've become particularly fond of the Lashing Tail Kick build with the Inna's Mantra set that taps into the new affix that was put on Rabid Strike in Patch 2.4.3), but at best, that means I move from one rut to another - each class has one build that I tend to favour above all others. (Whirlwind Bul-Kathos, Hammerdin, Marauding Grenadier, Inna's LTK, Inarius Bone Storm, Arachyr Firebats, Manald Archon. Part of the reason I favour those builds is that while some of them might not be the most effective for their classes, I do find them the most fun to play. And again, I'm not really interested in storming the upper echelons of the Greater Rift leaderboards.)

Since people have probably played through the whole campaign already there is something I'm curious about. The Necro (specifically the male one which is the one I'm using) is pretty gruff and cold to everyone (though seems to mellow out by the middle of act two {so as a side note I'm wondering if it would be appropriate to add Defrosting Ice King to his tropes on the character trope page?}). What I've noticed though is that he takes a much softer tone with Eirena than anyone else. Having only played through the campaign all the way before on the Crusader, where I didn't notice this phenomenon, is the necromancer the only character class were the mild ship tease between the enchantress and PC isn't apparently one sided?

edited 1st Jul '17 4:49:20 PM by Silentedge89

Hrm, I broke my usual pattern of taking Eirena through Campaign Mode with the Necromancer and took Kormac instead, so I didn't get those scenes (although if you read the Quest journals around the time you meet Eirena in Act 2, the Necromancer does seem fascinated by her arsenal of spells, and admits that his knowledge of magic outside necromancy is rather patchy). I don't remember any of the other characters returning Eirena's flirtation, but for some of them, it's been a long time since I played through Campaign Mode with them (I've played through it with every one of the six non-Necromancer classes except for the male Witch Doctor).

(Use of male pronouns henceforth a concession to the fact that my first and, so far, only Necromancer is male. Mentally replace with female pronouns or neutral ones as you see fit.)

I'm not sure I would agree that the Necromancer defrosts that much; he's rather blunt about having forsaken his ability to feel either sorrow or joy to devote himself to serving the cycle of life and death. Spoilers ahoy for anyone yet to complete Campaign Mode, with or without the Necromancer: for example, he regards the deaths of Cain and Leah as crimes against the balance between life and death, but is less sorrowful about losing them as friends and allies than any other character, as he sees death as just a part of life and thinks the other characters would do well to see it likewise. Just as an example of the reactions of the other six characters, the Wizard, haughty as they may be, writes in the Quest journal for the fight against Adria in Act 5 that they miss Leah and know that killing Adria might give them satisfaction, but won't bring Leah back. The Necromancer's journal entry for the fight against Adria doesn't even mention Leah.

To be fair, the Necromancer acknowledges that his choice of a solitary, stoic existence isn't for everyone; he tells Haedrig in Act 5 that the blacksmith needs companionship, that he can't live the solitary life the Necromancer leads. And he may be rather stone-faced about it, but he still tries to push Kormac into confessing his feelings for Eirena. And he's not entirely without wry humour; in Act 5, one of the randomly-generated follower conversations has Kormac musing that while he may no longer believe in the Templar order, he still believes in the teachings of Akarat. The Necromancer asks if he's ever heard about the teachings of Rathma...

Well, that's my take on it, anyway.

(Primal Ancient update: Messerschmidt's Reaver. It clearly needs saying again: screw you, game. At least the process of farming for Necromancer support gear is going well... mostly courtesy of Kadala and/or Kanai's Cube, but it was ever thus.)

edited 1st Jul '17 11:15:09 PM by mlsmithca

It might just be the VA. Whenever you talk to Eirena in the hub he takes a much softer tone than with anyone else, even Leah, and every character does that. Its the fact that he seems to curiously lose some of the gruff and gravel in his voice whenever he talks with her that strikes me as odd.

And yeah, the Necromancer has a very dry sense of humor that I appreciate. People are calling him the comically serious but if you really pay attention to some of the things he says he does sound sarcastic in a completely deadpan way that might be hard to pick up on unless you're looking for it.

edited 1st Jul '17 11:34:52 PM by Silentedge89

So it's been 18 months since I last played, and I read about the new Necromancer DLC. Aside from what's in the latest patch notes, how much has changed? Am contemplating getting it, but am also worried that it might be a bit hard to catch up with all the changes. (And as a minor aside: the way they changed Legendary items with every patch, I wonder how many of my items are now Legacy.)

It's hard for me to mentally relate a specific time frame to distinct changes in the game; I guess the easiest way would be to look at the release dates for the patch notes. 18 months means you probably stopped playing sometime before patch 2.4.0. So, let's see the highlights...

• Blizzard has added a bunch of new zones to Adventure Mode, found throughout the acts.
• Set Dungeons give you specific challenges themed around item sets, with fixed difficulty levels.
• You can empower a Greater Rift with gold, giving you an extra gem upgrade at the end.
• You can "rebirth" existing characters for a Season, transferring all their inventory to your mail and starting them over at level 1. This means you don't have to go to the effort of manually stashing all their gear and then deleting them if you want to free up a Seasonal slot.
• The buff bar has been revised, with a much cleaner interface to show you when skills are active.
• Massacre, Destruction, and Trap Mastery bonuses have been reworked on PC to match the console version.
  • Massacre (killing many mobs in a short time) grants an XP multiplier to all defeated mobs.
  • Destruction (breaking many objects in a short time) grants a temporary speed boost.
  • Pulverized (killing many mobs with a trap) grants a temporary cooldown reduction.
• % XP earned is now 1/10 as effective at level 70.
• Torment difficulty now goes up to 13.
• Knockback and grab abilities have been modified so it's not as easy to group up lots of monsters and AoE them down.
• There's a new legacy event that becomes available in January that lets you revisit Diablo 1, sort of.
• There's a new Armory feature that lets you save builds (including gear, gems, skills, passives, and Kanai powers) per-class and quickly swap between them in town.
• Crafting materials found through Salvaging are no longer stored in your inventory/Stash, but now have a separate tracking UI.
• Primal Ancient items may drop for characters who've completed a solo Greater Rift of tier 70 or greater. These roll maximum possible stats.
• Obviously, we've got the Necromancer class available to purchase now. You can get all the details easily enough.
• Challenge Rifts are a gameplay mode where you run a Greater Rift with an exact copy of one of your friends' builds to see if you can beat their time.

edited 2nd Jul '17 10:27:05 AM by Fighteer

Wasn't the Diablo 1 event a one-time thing? The way you worded it, it sounded like it was an event that will repeat every year.

The patch notes claim it will repeat each January.

Yes, the patch notes say it will run throughout the month of January each year until, presumably, the game goes offline. (Which is probably years away yet.) This year was a 20th anniversary celebration of the original Diablo, but since there are also achievements and cosmetic rewards attached to it, it would seem a bit callous to pull the plug on those permanently - though I'm not sure I'd entirely put that past Blizzard. (If you're a Diablo I veteran, you'll appreciate the fact that the in-town music, even outside the "Darkening of Tristram" area rendered in mock 1990s graphics, switches to the Diablo I soundtrack throughout January.)

A minor addendum to the gem upgrades in Greater Rifts: if you complete a Greater Rift without dying (if you use a "cheat death" passive, "dying" here means taking fatal damage while said passive is on cooldown), you also get an extra chance to upgrade Legendary gems. So if you complete an Empowered Greater Rift without dying, you get five chances to upgrade your Legendary gems. (And if you're like me, if the probability of success is 60%, all five will end in failure. )

edited 2nd Jul '17 9:56:46 AM by mlsmithca

Well, I've now picked up all of the Necromancer achievements, and have also mastered all of the Necromancer Set Dungeons. It only seems fitting that I should follow up my original post to this thread with a summary of the four Necromancer Set Dungeons (numbers in brackets pick up from the numbering in the previous post when it comes to the order in which I mastered them). Don't read any further if you're trying to avoid information about the Set Dungeons.

I don't know that I'd say any of them were difficult; I mastered all four on the first attempt. As for individual assessments:

Necromancer

• Bones of Rathma (28): This is probably the Necromancer dungeon with the strongest case for support gear; raising 100 Skeletal Mages and racking up 500 seconds' cooldown reduction on Army of the Dead before wiping out every enemy on the map is easier to do with things like the Circle of Nailuj's Evol ring to raise two Skeletal Mages at a time, the Obsidian Ring of the Zodiac for extra cooldown reduction, Tasker and Theo to increase your minions' attack speed and with it the frequency of cooldown reduction for Army of the Dead, and the Jesseth Arms set to effectively remove the need to keep tabs on Command Skeletons. It's also advisable to combine Devour with the Devouring Aura rune, the Life from Death passive, and the Reaper's Wraps bracers for steady Essence regeneration, as casting Skeletal Mage over and over burns through a lot of it. And remember to cast Army of the Dead whenever it comes off cooldown - you can't reduce cooldown of something that's finished cooling down!
• Grace of Inarius (25): This, on the other hand, has a negligible support gear requirement; really all you need are the pieces of the set and a decent amount of cooldown reduction to keep casting Bone Armor until you've stripped the bones from 100 enemies. For that matter, the only skills you really need here besides Bone Armor are Grim Scythe, as the kill 200 enemies affected by the Bone Armor tornado objective requires a melee Primary, and Blood Rush for mobility. And that's it. Probably the easiest of the four.
• Pestilence Master's Shroud (27): I definitely overgeared for this one, but it balanced the fact that I'm still trying to understand how this set works. The nice thing about the objective of tagging 150 enemies with empowered Bone Spear is that since it's a ranged attack, it dovetails with the objective of taking no more than 400,000 damage throughout the dungeon (I only took about 29,000, almost all from a single elite). Take Kormac and equip the Command Golem skill (with the Flesh Golem rune for an initial corpse pile) and you can keep your distance from the enemies, and the Devouring Aura/Life from Death/Reaper's Wraps trifecta will also keep your Essence maximised for repeated Bone Spear firing.
• Trag'Oul's Avatar (26): This one is also very light on the support gear; the only risk is getting overzealous on the life spending attacks (sort of a risk of the set in general) and ending up vulnerable to taking fatal damage from enemies (this can be partially offset by equipping or cubing the Lornelle's Stone ring, and the Final Service passive is helpful as a backup). Having the Funerary Pick equipped or cubed to target three enemies at once with Blood Siphon also makes the objective of healing for a total of 1,000% life significantly easier. There's more than enough enemies in this dungeon to achieve both objectives, to the point that I'm surprised they lowered the goal for healing from 1,500% as it was in the PTR.

The Necromancer Mastery pennant looks quite smart, although it doesn't contribute toward getting the Wings of Mastery (that still just requires mastering the set dungeons for the six non-DLC classes). I think I read somewhere that the Grace of Inarius set is going to be next season's free Necromancer set, which should make achieving the "master a Set Dungeon" objective for the season journey a cakewalk for Necromancers.

edited 3rd Jul '17 11:42:56 PM by mlsmithca

I've been playing a Necromancer to see how the class feels. I have to say that Corpse Explosion is the shizz. I didn't know I was missing it until I found it. That said, the visual display of "corpses" on the ground is a bit immersion-breaking.

Season 11 starting July 20

Here are the sets granted by Haedrig’s Gift in Season 11:

• Barbarian – Wrath of the Wastes
• Crusader – Roland’s Legacy
• Demon Hunter – Unhallowed Essence
• Monk – Raiment of a Thousand Storms
• Necromancer – Bones of Rathma
• Witch Doctor – Helltooth Harness
• Wizard – Tal Rasha’s Elements

Those look amazing.

Agreed that the graphical display of corpses is a bit jarring (cf. stevebat's post @3407), but given that corpses are nearly always fairly quickly blowed up real good (cf. MarkVonLewis' post @3408) or turned into flying pointy death (my own preferred Corpse skill since I don't have the experience required to have fond memories of blowing up corpses with the Diablo II Necromancer) or harvested for Essence, it's not as though they're on the screen for long. Still, perhaps it's the game's graphics' version of Conspicuously Light Patch?

Ah, Bones of Rathma as the Season 11 Necromancer set, not Grace of Inarius. My mistake. Haven't decided which class I'll play yet - my usual groupmates are currently planning to play as a Necromancer and a Witch Doctor, so it would seem fitting for me to play a melee class, but the Set Dungeons for Wrath of the Wastes, Roland's Legacy, and Raiment of a Thousand Storms are all right pains in the backside (unless, in the last case, I could somehow get Nemesis Bracers and In-geom to drop). Perhaps I'll harvest one of the other sets for whichever class I play and master that dungeon instead?

(EDITED TO ADD: Looks as though there's a "Blood Mage" build using the Trag'Oul's Avatar set that has already dethroned the Grace of Inarius-centred "Bone Storm" build as the preferred top tier Greater Rift leaderboard Necromancer build. Haven't tried it myself yet, but it looks to rely a bit too heavily on waiting for skills to come off cooldown - Land of the Dead and Simulacrum, to be precise - for it to appeal to my personal tastes. But we'll see.

Meanwhile, the Greater Rift leaderboards are going to be reset again on Monday, as Blizzard have had to apply a hotfix to a bug that saw a massive spike in the level of Greater Rifts that could be cleared with a Demon Hunter using Marked for Death and a Necromancer using Frailty. Proof, if more were needed, that the Necromancer DLC perhaps wasn't quite ready for release.)

(EDITED FURTHER TO ADD: I got a second Primal Ancient from Kadala... Defiler Cuisses, one of the Legendary pants for Necromancer. I'm honestly not sure what to make of this one; it doesn't seem to fit any especially useful builds. I suppose I'll hold onto it for now.

EDITED STILL FURTHER TO ADD: Primal Ancient Squirt's Necklace. I must have run over the game's dog or something.)

edited 12th Jul '17 11:10:35 PM by mlsmithca

Lest anyone hasn't logged in for a few days/weeks/months, there's a community event going on this weekend (it started last night at 8pm EDT/5pm PDT in the Americas and Australia, Blizzard's website is a bit vague on when it started in Europe and Asia) wherein you can earn double XP from now until the morning of 17 July. I was wondering why my Paragon levels were suddenly going up much more quickly than they had done for a long time...